There was
love between him and the child that blent them into one, and there was
love between the child and the world- from men and women with parental
looks and tones, to the red lady-birds and the round pebbles.
Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entirely in relation to
Eppie: she must have everything that was a good in Raveloe; and he
listened docilely, that he might come to understand better what this
life was, from which, for fifteen years, he had stood aloof as from
a strange thing, with which he could have no communion: as some man
who has a precious plant to which he would give a nurturing home in
a new soil, thinks of the rain and sunshine, and all influences, in
relation to his nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge
that will help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, or
to guard leaf and bud from invading harm. The disposition to hoard had
been utterly crushed at the very first by the loss of his
long-stored gold: the coins he earned afterwards seemed as
irrelevant as stones brought to complete a house suddenly buried by an
earthquake; the sense of bereavement was too heavy upon him for the
old thrill of satisfaction to arise again at the touch of the
newly-earned coin. And now something had come to replace his hoard
which gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy
continually onward beyond the money.
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